Recruitment events

Hosting an open day or taster session at your school is a great way to boost your application numbers. Open days give you the chance to meet prospective applicants and showcase your school before trainees apply.
On this page you will find some best practice tips to help run and promote a successful event at your school.

We recommend you consider hosting several events throughout the year; once a month if possible. It is also good practice to think of your target audience when organising the timing of each event. Bear in mind that career changers won’t be as flexible as students and recent graduates.

Please use this plan as a guide for physics only or as part of your overall recruitment strategy. If you have any questions, please email teach@iop.org and we will be happy to help. You can also sign-up to receive twice termly e-mail advice and information from our marketing team through the IOP Support page. This will also allow you to advertise your events on our Training Provider events calendar. You can view the upcoming events here.

1. Organise a recruitment event

Below are seven steps that will help you organise a successful recruitment event

Set a date and time. Avoid holiday dates for your local universities and consider your target audience’s availability

Invite speakers. Having a trainee or NQT is a really powerful way to engage the audience. They can share their experience of training first hand.

Advertise the event. This is important to gain a good attendance rate. Ideas for how to do this can be found in section two.

Set up event registration. This can be as simple as asking attendees to email you to confirm their attendance. This way you can send reminder emails one week before and one day before the event

Send out the programme. Share the session schedule prior to the event

Make attendees feel welcome. Welcome attendees on the day and introduce them to one another

Follow-up. By registering attendees you will be able to keep in touch with your prospective trainee teachers. You could also offer a post-event experience day to bring prospective applicants back to your school for a tour and observational classroom experience...

2. Promoting your recruitment event

Here are some suggestions for where you may want to advertise your event. Before you look at the following points, you might want to familiarise yourself with the basic marketing steps we have outlined here.

posters in local businesses, community centres, doctors’ surgeries, dentists

local community websites and forums

inform the careers department in your local university

social media channels

local radio

ask NCTL to advertise the event on their website and promote it via their Twitter feed (@getintoteaching)

Tip:

Highlight the benefits of your event:Can you offer observational school experience?Will you share application and interview advice?Inform attendees about the funding available, both government bursaries and scholarships.Is there going to be opportunity to network with past and present trainees?